


Chess

by FrozenWings



Series: Game Night with Frohana [2]
Category: Frozen (Disney Movies)
Genre: Board Games, Chess, Fluff, Frohana (Disney), Game Night, Gen, Post-Frozen (2013), Pre-Frozen 2 (2019), fluffy fluffy fluff, snow sisters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:54:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26066083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrozenWings/pseuds/FrozenWings
Summary: As Queen, Elsa has a responsibility to see to it that rules are followed, especially within the walls of her castle.So, really, her intervening in the chess 'lesson' Anna's giving Kristoff isnotmere pettiness.It's a matter of national importance.
Relationships: Anna & Elsa (Disney), Anna & Kristoff
Series: Game Night with Frohana [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1853851
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	Chess

**Author's Note:**

> Written August 2019
> 
> I'm back! Welcome to the second installment in this series. This is actually one of my earliest attempts at 'Frozen' fanfiction, written before 'Arm Wrestling,' so if it's a little rough around the edges, I apologize in advance. Looking back, though, I do love some of the dialog exchanges and character interactions; I hope you enjoy them too!

Rain was tapping a steady tattoo on the window of the den in Arendelle Castle, providing soothing ambient noise for the occupants within. Queen Elsa sat at a round oak table, the castle steward Kai opposite her, both occupied with reviewing a stack of correspondences that needed to go out the following day. Elsa didn’t usually work in the den, but the serenity of her office had been invaded by the steady dripping of a leaky roof that refused to be dammed by her ice, hence her migrating to her present location. The work was mostly complete, with the only reason for said review being that the Queen was famously thorough, not approving of anything that hadn’t had its i’s dotted and t’s crossed. Twice.

Intermingling with the sound of the rain outdoors was the crackle of a roaring fire in the hearth several paces away from Elsa’s impromptu workstation. The flickering light served to illuminate the two figures sprawled out on the carpet, a chessboard between them: Crown Princess Anna teaching her boyfriend Kristoff how to play chess. Though both participants typically preferred physical sports as opposed to sedentary games of strategy, foul weather and general boredom had left them with little in the way of alternative options. Anna had initially paused upon seeing that her sister had already laid claim to the room, but Elsa assured her that, so long as her and Kristoff remained quiet, they were more than welcome to stay.

Elsa sighed contentedly as she folded another letter shut and handed it off to Kai to seal. Even though she was technically working, she truly believed she couldn’t feel more relaxed. Everything was just so peaceful, so quiet, so tranquil, with the only sounds coming from the rhythm of the rain, the snapping of the logs in the fireplace, and the beautiful cadence of her sister's voice as she patiently taught Kristoff the rules and intricacies of chess.

“...And this piece is called the horse.”

Elsa’s ears perked up upon hearing the appellation Anna gave to the admittedly horse-shaped chess piece. _It’s called a knight_ , she thought to herself. _I’m pretty sure Anna knows that_. Elsa puzzled over this, her eyes not truly seeing the words on the parchment in her hand. Maybe Anna had forgotten? It admittedly had been a while since the two of them last played chess together. Or perhaps she was simplyfying things for Kristoff’s sake? Yes, that was probably it. Satisfied with this construction, she returned her attention to her work.

“Now, pawns can't move backwards, only forward, one or two squares straight or diagonally...”

Once again Elsa felt her attention drawn away from the task in front of her. Her brow wrinkled as she mulled over what her sister had just said. _That’s not exactly right; she’s leaving out some of the rules._ Elsa chewed her lip distractedly, debating if she should intervene.

“Your Majesty?”

Kai’s voice cut through her reverie and she shook her head briefly as though ridding it of any chess-related notions. Anna surely gave the full list of instructions regarding moving pawns; Elsa probably just didn’t hear. Once again, she turned her attention back to Kai and papers spread out across the table, determined to block out any subsequent distractions from the pair by the fireplace.

This proved to be easier said then done. Anna’s words continued to float towards her as though carried by a persistent breeze puffing in her ear, demanding her attention, and now that Elsa’s curiosity was piqued she couldn’t help but listen to what she said. 

“Horses can only move one square diagonally at a time.”

“You know, you can get that castle back by simply trading in one of your pawns.”

"Of course all the pieces can jump over each other. It wouldn't be much of a game if they couldn't." 

With each ‘rule’ her sister presented Elsa felt herself internally cringe more and more. The sentences grated against her ears like nails on a chalkboard, sending involuntary shivers scuttling up and down her spine and pulling her mind away from trade agreements and politics. With each passing minute she was finding it progressively harder to maintain her composure. When she heard Anna state that kings could move three squares in any direction so long as they captured another piece, it was as though a tightly-coiled mental spring had been released.

Elsa stood with celerity, causing her chair to scrape noisily across the floor. Without a word she turned and stalked towards the pair by the fireplace, frost-rimmed footprints and a chilly breeze following in her wake. Kai noted this and settled back in his chair, hands resting comfortably on his stomach. He knew that treating the royal family's personal squabbles as an object of amusement was in incredibly poor taste, especially for a castle steward. However, he was only human and just _knew_ that the events that were about to transpire would prove incredibly diverting.

******************************

“Oh, hey sis,” Anna greeted her elder, teal eyes briefly flicking upward at the blonde towering over her before returning to the gameboard. Her and Kristoff had been enjoying quite the match, with each having accumulated a small retinue of captured pieces.

“Anna!” Elsa exclaimed, her voice a mixture of bewilderment and disgust. “What do you think you’re doing?!?” 

“Playing chess.” Anna replied simply, moving her surviving bishop from a black square to a white one. 

“You’re not playing chess, you’re _desecrating_ chess!” Elsa exclaimed, throwing her hands in the general vicinity of the gameboard. 

Anna fought the urge to look up at her sister again as she swallowed down a laugh. She hadn’t intended to get her sister’s goat when she offered to teach Kristoff how to play chess, rules strategically amended (for Kristoff's sake, _not/I > because she found the game too stuffy and too hard to win besides), but now that she had it, oh, would she have some fun with it!_

“Whatever do you mean?” she asked innocently, batting her eyelashes up at Elsa in (she hoped) a beguiling fashion. 

“You’re playing it all wrong!” Elsa cried with barely concealed frustration. 

“No we’re not.” Anna stated with a quick shake of the head.

“Wha- are you daft?!?” The warmth from the fire seemed to lessen slightly and Anna bit back a giggle as a light dusting of snowflakes began to fall over the wooden battlefield that was the cause of her sister’s consternation. 

“This is not how you play chess!!”

“Yes it is,” Anna insisted, her tone unchanging despite the mirth tumbling in her chest. “We’re moving our pieces around the board, capturing each other’s pieces, and whoever gets the other’s king first wins.” Anna counted off each of these aspects of gameplay on her fingers before turning her face back to Elsa, smiling winningly. “See? Chess!” 

Upon hearing this Elsa’s face turned _such_ a shade of red that Anna couldn’t help herself any longer and allowed a decidedly unladylike, raucous bout of laughter erupt from her chest. 

Elsa’s exasperation abated somewhat at the sound and she groaned inwardly at the realization that Anna was trifling with her. She allowed a slight grin as she rolled her eyes at her sister, still writhing on the carpet with laughter. “Alright, Anna,” she said, heaving an exaggerated sigh. “You got me. Now can you please teach Kristoff chess the proper way?”

“Oh,” said Anna, sobering quickly and returning to a sitting position. “That wasn’t an act. I mean, yeah, maybe I was milking things a little and, heh, let’s be honest,” she smirked at the queen. “The look on your face was totally worth it. But I was completely serious about everything I said before you came over here.” 

“But every instruction you gave him was wrong!” Elsa cried, incredulous.

“Not really,” Anna countered with a shrug. “Basically, chess is just moving pieces around a board. It doesn’t matter how you do it.”

“It..doesn’t..matter?!?” Elsa’s voice was tight with shock as her sister’s nonchalant attitude towards the game returned, accompanied by the flurry from earlier. “Chess is an ancient and venerable game with a long history! You can’t just move pieces around willy-nilly!” 

Anna casually grabbed one of Kristoff's pawns and moved it too spaces to the left, taking his turn for him. "Just did."

A muscle near Elsa's eye twitched. 

Taking a deep breath, the queen composed herself and banished the flurry before speaking again. “Anna, there’s more to chess then ‘just moving pieces around a board.’” Her initial frustration had receded enough to allow her usual calm demeanor to prevail, and her voice was now that of a tutor correcting an ignorant pupil rather than a blisteringly offended chess enthusiast. She knelt on the floor in front of the fire and waved a hand over the board, dissolving the dusting of shimmering powder that had settled there. “Each one is unique, with strengths and weaknesses that enable the player to formulate both complex and simple strategies, all in the name of scuring victory.”

“Uh-huh.” Anna replied in a bored tone. Now it was her turn to roll her eyes, this time at her sister’s nerdy attitude towards what she viewed as just another board game. 

“Here,” said Elsa. “Allow me to demonstrate.”

With a quick flick of her wrist, a chessboard made of ice materialized alongside the wooden one, complete with a set of crystalline chess pieces. Some were a nearly-blinding white, glimmering like fresh, untouched snow; others a deep icy blue, almost the exact shade of its creator's eyes. Another movement of the slender fingers summoned a chill breeze accompanied by dancing particles of glowing azure magic that lazily drifted in loops above the wintry gameboard. Anna and Kristoff could only stare in stunned silence at the queen’s creation, looking with agog at the intricately carved board and delicate pieces. 

After giving them a moment (it really was one of her finest creations, if she did say so herself), Elsa took a deep breath before speaking. “Pawns can move one square forward, _never_ backward, unless they’re moving from the start position; then they can move two squares. They can only move diagonally when capturing a piece and then only if the move takes them forward. The horse-shaped piece is called a kinght and can move three squares in an L-shape like so; they’re the _only_ piece that can jump over others. This piece is a rook, not a castle regardless of what it looks like. And the king can only move one square in any direction unless that move puts him in check or checkmate.” 

With every rule Elsa explained, the magical breeze and particulates pushed the pieces around the board, illustrating her words. This continued for several minutes, Elsa hardly pausing for breath. Finally, having explained the basics of the game (or, more accurately, her idea of the basics), she looked up at the couple, a delighted smile on her face.

“See? It’s really quite simple.”

Anna crossed her arms and huffed; she had forgotten that Elsa was a regular martinet about rules, especially when chess was concerned. “No, not simple.” she countered, “You just showed the number one problem with chess: too many rules. We’ll never be able to remember them all!”

Elsa shook her head affectionatily. “It just takes practice, Anna. Over time, they’ll become second nature. Besides, I’m sure Kristoff understands my point. Don’t you Kristoff?”

Both girls turned to look at the mountain man, who had turned silent upon Elsa's unforeseen arrival and stayed that way straight through the sisters' exchange and Elsa's subsequent impromptu chess lesson. “Er...uh...” he stammered, eyes darting from princess to queen to the two gameboards on the floor. Anna’s eyes met her sister's, the look in them clearly saying ‘Told ya so!’ 

Elsa sighed; she had been through enough council meetings to know when to admit defeat. Kristoff was wearing the distinct dazed expression of a man who had just been hit by an avalanche, albeit one consisting of information rather than snow. While there was no doubt in her mind that he was capable of learning the nuances of chess, he clearly hadn’t set out to do so today. All he was after was a relaxing afternoon with his girlfriend, which they had clearly been having prior to her intrusion. She really had no business barging in and telling them they were having fun the wrong way, especially since no one was in mortal peril (discounting the dignity of chess, which, in all honesty, wasn’t as importance as her sister and friend having a good time). 

“You know what?” she said, snapping her fingers as she stood, causing the chessboard made of enchanted ice to evaporate into the air. “It doesn’t matter; keep playing as you were before. After all,” she winced a little at her next words, “it’s just a game.” 

Anna looked up at her sister, a wave of warmth tinged with guilt washing over her. She knew how passionate Elsa was about chess (it was right under snowball fights for things-you-challenge-the-queen-to-at-your-own-risk) and how, in her eyes, it was anything but ‘just a game.’ The fact that she was willing to push her feelings aside and allow her sister to play as she pleased was beyond touching. 

But, as fun as it was teasing her by throwing the rules to the wind, it wasn’t fair, especially with Elsa being so generous as to allow her and Kristoff to stay in the den and play while she worked. “Actually,” Anna said, fingering a knight-not-a-horsey, “I think I’m really more in the mood for checkers today. What about you Kristoff?” 

Kristoff blinked, coming out of his daze, and looked at Anna skeptically. “I dunno; does it have less rules?” 

Anna laughed at that, getting up and skipping to a shelf in the corner and grabbing a small wooden box. “Oh, yeah, _way_ less.” She resumed her cross-legged position on the carpet and began unceremoniously dumping the chess pieces back in their box and replacing them with checkers, carefully placing them so that they covered the black squares on the board. “Elsa refuses to play because its not enough of a challenge.”

“Hey!” Elsa protested, her voice tinged with amusement as she dumped a small snowdrift on Anna’s head. 

“It’s true!” Anna stated, giggling, brushing the snow out of her red hair. “Just ask Kai! He was there!”

Remembering the fourth person in the room, Elsa glanced back towards the table by the window, where Kai was looking very busy and for all the world lilke someone who was not listening in to the conversation by the fireside, though the sparkle in his eyes betrayed him. With a final glance at the couple and their gameboard, Elsa gave a small sigh and returned to her work. She was midway through a letter to a baroness concerning the seasonal crop yield when Kai cleared his throat. 

“You know, Your Majesty, I used to be quite the formidible chess opponent back in the day; your father never did mange to checkmate me.” He paused before lifting his eyes to his monarch and continuing. “If you would like to try once we’re done I’d be more than willing to have a quick match.” 

Elsa smiled, her eyes sparking with anticipation at the idea of matching wits with a new opponent. “I would love to, Kai; thank you," she replied, her regally polite demeanor thoroughly concealing the competitive flame that had jumped to life in her chest, mind already racing through opening moves and formulating a strategy.

 _Brave soul_ , thought Anna from the fireside before devoting her attention fully to the new game. Once again, calm reigned in the den, the only sounds the crinkling of parchment, the crackle of the fire, and the rain pelting against the window. However, Anna the incorrigible was still in the room, and checkers is a completely different matter than chess. When the pile of correspondence was nearly completed, voices once again sounded from the people by the fireplace.

“Are you sure you’re allowed to move your piece onto a red square, Anna? That doesn’t seem right.” 

“Oh, sure, it's perfectly fine,” replied the redhead, eyes once again twinkling with mischief as she mentally counted _3, 2, 1..._

"AAARRRGGGHHH!!!"

**Author's Note:**

> As far as Anna's concerned, board games have only one rule and one goal: all rules are flexible, and drive Elsa bananas (how else is she supposed to make them interesting?). ;)
> 
> I do know how to play chess (albeit poorly), but somehow that didn't make it any easier to think of ways Anna could botch the rules; coming up with them was _hard!_
> 
> I'll try and be quicker about uploading the next installment; it's my personal favorite so I'm pretty excited to finally share it. Until next time!


End file.
